“Rashid Hassan would be prepared to pay suitable compensation, and release all English slaves. The compensation would be paid directly into your hands, captain, in gold bars, for you to carry to your admiral, you to make the count. I am, as well, under orders to make a small gift to you as a token of Rashid Hassan’s awareness of his errors.”
A member of Whitebeard’s entourage laid a small package on Frederick’s desk; the unsubtle bribery did not help their cause.
“No. Your every vessel is to be surrendered – no other terms to be accepted!”
“Two hours of truce to inform the Bey of your intransigence, captain?”
“Accepted – but if any ship moves or gun or soldier appears I will open fire immediately.”
Thirty minutes passed after the emissary’s return to the fort and then the gates opened again and a small party appeared.
“Ten of their soldiers and what looks like English seamen, sir, four of them in trousers and shirts.”
With a sudden brutal efficiency the four were forced to their knees, swords were displayed and their heads were hacked off, each needing three or four blows.
“Boat, sir.”
“Do not let him board.”
Frederick walked slowly to the side, waited, controlling his anger, until the same party was alongside.
“For that you will die if I lay hands on you. Your ships, your fort, yourselves – I will destroy you all.”
“We have nearly two thousands of Christian slaves here – without the galleys we have no need for them. We will kill one hundred every hour until you leave.”
“Do so and I will burn your town as well. The truce ends now. Go back to your fort, I will not fire on you until you are inside. Mr Jackman, chaser to open fire! Signal Tartarus to shoot.”
The long thirty two boomed; two seconds later dust rose from the thick walls of the citadel in symbolic gesture. The mortars coughed and a galley flared, listed, took fierce fire.
“Broadsides on the fort at fifteen minute intervals. Mr Critchel, Mr McGregor, foremasthead, telescope, watch the gates to the fort, inform me if any try to leave.”
The mortars had dropped into a regular pattern, four or five discharges, a delay while the ketch’s head was shifted, another burst of fire. Clouds of smoke filled the harbour, drifted down to the town. The broadside battered into the fort, doing very little harm other than to knock down the watergate seconds after Whitebeard passed through it. The chaser continued to fire, slamming futilely into the massive walls.
“Sir! On deck! They’re throwing bodies over the walls of the fort, sir!”
“Mr Jackman, change your aim to those warehouses below the citadel.”
The much thinner walls collapsed most satisfactorily.
Two hours passed and every vessel in the harbour was sunk or burning to the waterline and at least two hundred broken bodies littered the ground outside the walls.
“Tartarus change target to the fort. Broadsides to cease.”
The small cannon on the seaward face of the fort were all gone, the ramparts showed some holes, but the walls were unbreached. There had been no return fire, any larger guns were obviously positioned to cover the harbour.
“Quite possibly, sir, they are set to threaten the town,” Ferrier suggested. “Rulers on the Barbary Coast often need to protect themselves against their own people.”
“Possibly, Mr Ferrier – I had not thought of that.”
“On deck, sir. More bodies.”
“Mr Beeton – the land gate of the fort, do you see it? Aim every gun that will bear, personally, a full broadside the second it opens for their escape. If I am not very much mistaken, the mortars will rapidly make the fort untenable.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Tartarus shifted her moorings, pottered and fussed for thirty minutes, fired a sighting shot neatly into the fort, dropped instantly into rapid fire, two rounds every third minute.
“On deck, sir – gates have just sagged open a fraction, sir, as if their bar had been removed.”
“Shoot, Mr Beeton!”
The gates splintered and smashed into a group of horsemen immediately inside preparing to escape. Animals and men all went down.
“White flag, sir!”
“Cease fire. My launch and crew. Longboat with Marc and Jean and their rifles. Goldfarb! You and eight of your soldiers – take muskets and go in the longboat as a landing party.”
“Ja, sir! I mean, aye, aye, sir! Thank you, sir!”
“Mr Jackman, ship to the quay, to pick up rescued slaves and prisoners. Leadsmen.”
Frederick turned to the boats, waiting till all were aboard. “Mr Simons! Leave that dirk, take a fighting cutlass!”
He shook his head – Simons had seemed a reasonable prospect, a little slow but sound, but he could not cope with extra responsibilities, would never grow into an officer at this rate. He had no family money, no other occupation – a fighting berth on a privateer might be his answer in a couple of years.
“Watergate, Ablett.”
Against the huge blocks of the old quay, centuries old, made by the ancients, the two boats together.
“Mr Simons, hold offshore, out of musket shot. If I am taken return to the ship. Do not give in to any threat to me or yourself. Do you understand?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
They formed up on the quay, waited for the formal surrender that the white flag had promised.
“Movement, sir,” Ablett warned.
Whitebeard appeared, waved right and left, brought armed soldiers forward.
“Put your guns down, your hands up, captain.”
“Your surrender?”
“Don’t be childish!”
“Fire!”
Frederick shot both of his pistols at Whitebeard at ten foot range, hit with one and enjoyed the look of amazement as he clutched his belly. He heard shots and screams all round him, the staccato banging of the Fergusons. As he drew his new sword the boat carronade blasted grape a few feet away.
Whitebeard was down on one knee, panting, his wound not obviously fatal.
“I surrender!”
“I’m deaf, you murderous animal!”
Frederick lunged, point aimed carefully into the cup of neck and shoulder, thrust down and sideways on the hilt as the heavy blade punched towards the lungs. He heaved back, clinically noting the sucking noise, stepped away from the fountain of bright blood.
Ablett was blocking two men at his back. Frederick slashed at one’s face, very calm, all seeming slow, the man down, howling; turning, Bosomtwi with blood across his shirt hacking his man to the ground. Four with swords charging into him, the rifles taking two, the heavy soft lead balls smashing them aside; two still coming, close, swords raised – a low slash, upwards from groin to belly, one down screaming, too late to parry number two, Ablett knocking him off balance, his sword point deep into Frederick’s right shoulder instead of centrally in his chest.
“Missed, you bastard!” He grabbed his hanger in his left hand as his right opened uncontrollably, jerked an awkward back cut, saw and smelt the guts open, stepped back to keep his boots clean.
Goldfarb and Jewson bustled past him, cutlass and boarding axe apiece, cleaning up. A sudden horrible groaning crunch as Charybdis slammed into the quay and a roaring mob of seamen and Marines piled into the fort, Morris at his side.
“Well, Doctor, let us hope none are so naïve as to ask quarter.”
“Yes, sir, now stop playing the bloody hero! You haven’t got an audience.”
“I am watching.”
“You won’t be if I don’t get this bleeding stopped.”
“Where’s Simons?”
“Sir!”
“I told you to go back to the ship!”
“I ordered them to, sir, and one of them said, ‘I’ll tell the bishop!’ And then, sir, they all of them shouted, ’F**ck the bishop, isn’t it!’ and then we were at the quay and they all jumped ashore, sir, so I took my cutlass and foll
owed them, look, sir.” He proudly displayed a cutlass dripping blood with a great nick halfway up the blade. “Like the lesson, sir – high parry and then stick it right into him! Excuse me, sir!”
The boy turned away, vomited noisily and then burst into tears.
“He’ll do, sir.” Morris tugged on the end of a bandage, peered at his handiwork. “So will you. Go aboard, sir. Now.”
“How’s Bosomtwi?”
“I got a little bit cut, isn’t it – you should see the bugger what do it, sir! Look, Doctor.”
“I’ll stitch it later, man – not important now.”
Ablett came, took his left arm. “This way, sir.”
“What’s the butcher’s bill, Jackman?”
“Five of your boat crew, sir. Two more dead and twenty wounded, no count yet of seriously or light. We found another four hundred of slaves – every one of them dead or dying. No prisoners, sir, not after the men saw that.”
A cannon boomed, a deep, heavy note. Frederick realised he had heard others in the exhausted half doze of the last couple of hours.
“Are they attacking?”
“No, sir. As we guessed, all of the heavy cannon in the fort point across the harbour, protecting shipping or threatening town, who knows which? Two are big old Turkish guns, fire a stone ball which must weigh a hundred pounds, and there are five French twelves, very modern. The lads are bombarding the town, aiming at every big building they can see. Tartarus is in the cut, dropping bombs into the citadel – Captain Evans says those big, thick castle walls will hold everything inside, won’t let any of the explosion go to waste, all of it confined where it will do most good. There’s smoke rising already.”
Satisfied an hour later that the citadel was blazing merrily Captain Evans shifted his aim to the waterfront where he had identified a small shipyard and a number of expensive looking warehouses. He found an olive oil store within the hour; later he discovered the magazine and the combination served to spread uncontrollable fires running wild throughout the whole of the lower town. The hillside grew dense with refugees.
Frederick observed all through the first sweats of fever, peered shakily at his watch.
“Clear the land before you blow up the fort, Mr Jackman. Destroy everything, and if you can block the cut, do so. If I become too ill to maintain command, then escort Tartarus to Palermo, us to return to Toulon, as per the orders open on my desk.”
Jackman assured him that all would be done as he would want, as if he himself had done it.
Several hours of willing labour prepared the fort and battery for demolition, Captain Evans directing them where to place, sometimes bury, powder charges for the best effect. They destroyed the barrels of the siege guns from the battery, charging them almost to the muzzle with powder, wedging a ball on top, laying a long train of match to their touchholes. As night fell they blew the magazines to battery and fort and touched off the charges laid below the quay at the Watergate, watched in satisfaction as the great old stones rolled forwards into the cut. There would be many months of dredging before that harbour opened again, if ever it did.
“A pity it cannot be extended to every nest of murderers in the Mediterranean, Mr Ferrier – but the message may well be heard.”
Book Three: The Duty and Destiny Series
Chapter Six
The wind strengthened in the northeast and forced Charybdis into a long series of northwesterly tacks, the more tedious for having the slow, unweatherly Tartarus to escort, before finally being able to drop southeast into Palermo, parting company with many polite signals and an overt friendliness. The Charybdises were not best pleased with the bomb, however, acknowledging that she had done a very good job in her way, but, very quietly, asking just where she had been when it came to storming the fort. Mathematics was all very well, they agreed, but a true sailor got his hands dirty when the need arose.
Frederick knew none of this, for he was confined to his cabin, to his cot indeed, during the run to Palermo, and ambulant only in the hours before they finally rejoined at Toulon. He lost two stones in weight in the three weeks after the fight, the fever burning his flesh, muscle melting away from his already reasonably spare frame. His right shoulder was stiff, the arm weak and he could not raise his hand to head high, could not bring a coffee cup to his lips right-handed.
“Bone, tendon and muscle – chipped, sliced and torn respectively, Sir Frederick. A year in the healing, sir, more if you stay on board. My formal advice to you, captain, as your medical man, is that you invalid out of Charybdis and stay on shore for two years in a cool clime and eating good food. At the end of that time you will know whether you are capable of wielding sword or pistol or whether you must never go to sea again.”
“Thank you, Doctor Morris, I shall bear your advice in mind, sir.”
“I am glad to hear that, sir. My report to the Physician of the Fleet will repeat it.”
A good doctor was often a damned nuisance, Frederick reflected, trying to swing his right arm and succeeding only in hurting it, but a bad one was an unmitigated disaster.
“Ablett, have you made up the launch’s crew yet?”
“Yes, sir – volunteers half a dozen times over – five permanent for the dead and one in place of Allington until he can row again.”
“Six down from nine of you, ten if you include Bosomtwi.”
“They wanted the job, sir, and standing in front of the captain is part of it. They did well, sir – only one went down before killing his man, and he was shot.”
“Did any leave wives or children?”
“Children perhaps, sir – they were sailors! Young Tite sent money home regular as clockwork to his old mum and dad – youngest boy, he were. All his prize money, every last penny of it.”
“David!”
LeGrys hobbled through from his little cubbyhole of an office.
“Tite of the launch crew, find out his parents’ direction and send a letter from me. Another letter to Stainer to pay them a pension.”
“Letter from you is already sent, sir – we send one for each of our people who dies, as long as we have someone to send to. Just so that they will know what happened, won’t be left wondering all their days, half-expecting their man to come back. They go out under your name. Five bob a week for Tite’s parents, sir? Enough to pay their rent and put a joint of meat on the table once a week.”
Frederick nodded, it seemed reasonable and it was a lot more than many old couples lived on.
“I have drawn up a preliminary of our report on the action at Djerba, sir, together with Mr Jackman and Mr Ferrier – my log of the day for the times, their descriptions and my English. All other reports, dockets and statements of condition are drawn up, sir, ready for submission to the Admiral.”
“Thank you, David – as ever, I cannot imagine how I survived without you, I could never have produced these papers half so well. May I read the report?”
The boy’s face flushed with pleasure; he passed the three pages across.
“Good… quite right… did we really? Good God! Six hundred! Yes, write it out in best, but add in the proper place, let me see now, ‘Captain Evans of Tartarus, an able and most deserving officer who showed great technical and tactical skill, and displayed initiative and zeal, and to whom alone belongs the credit for the destruction of Rashid Hassan’s war-fleet’.”
Jackman responded to the Admiral’s signal of ‘Captain to repair aboard the Flag’, conveying apologies and inability to conform through injury.
Farquhar read the report in high indignation.
“Six hundred slaves just butchered, Mr Jackman?”
“Heads chopped off, throats cut, cannon loaded with grape turned on one of their barracks, sir. Plain murder, Sir Iain!”
Jackman was still clearly angry and sickened by the wanton, gratuitous cruelty of the act, was now convinced of the truth of the old stories of the Barbary pirates and their rule of terror around the Western Mediterranean coasts.
“Yo
u served them out, I see – no prisoners taken – well done! And Sir Frederick?”
“Wounded in an act of treachery, sir – they called their surrender and broke their word instantly. He is only just recovered from the wound fever, sir, his shoulder much hurt and the arm weak; as well he has lost much of his bodily strength. The Doctor says a year to mend and another to recover his strength, if it can be regained at all, and says he should go home.”
“And he, being the man he is, wishes to stay.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will visit Charybdis myself, Mr Jackman.”
“Tomorrow, I beg of you, sir!”
“You are premier, of course, Mr Jackman, will want time before an Admiral’s Inspection!” Sir Iain chuckled, remembering his own years as a first lieutenant, allowed himself to stare at his unacknowledged son, liking what he saw. The heavily scarred face, pink tissue on both cheeks, was nonetheless not so disfigured as to be a problem in society, might indeed tend to disguise the nature of his swarthiness, and he stood square, strong, alert, shorter than Farquhar but showing a similarity of build and stance. A son to be proud of, but he dared not publicly take him up, for the illegitimate were disbarred from the King’s Commission. However, there need be no great problem in looking after him – if Sir Frederick went home then Campbell of the Holly post ship, a deserving young man despite the name, could step into his shoes and young Stewart of the Jedburgh brig could be made – thus pleasing his wife whose cousin he was – and Jackman could become Master and Commander vice, a normal compliment to his captain, in no way untoward. He must mention Stewart to Sir Frederick, his younger brother had died on Athene. He could ill afford to lose Sir Frederick, fighting frigate captains did not grow on trees, but he was not a planner, a great strategist, and if unfit would be of less value – Home was the place for him.
The Fuzzy-Wuzzy Man (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 3) Page 17
